MessageViewer - Industry "Trend" Question

[jsurpless]

Quick question - rather curious about this...

I was recently told by one of my company's development team that the industry "trend" or "standard" with regards to outputting to the MessageViewer is to go from bottom to top...

So, instead of it being like this

Message1
Message2
Message3
etc...

it would be

etc...
Message3
Message2
Message1

This seems very odd to me and I'm wondering if this is true?

 

[jmcilhinney]

What exactly is "the MessageViewer"?

 

[Robert_Zenz]

@jimcilhinney: I think he means how to write a log.


@jsurpless:
And? I mean, who cares?
I've done both things, outputting messages at the top is taking away the need to scroll, but might be confusing if you output the same thing to a log file. America/Europe is a Top-Left to Bottom-Right culture, so outputting 1 2 3 seems quiet more natural than 3 2 1. You can use one of these styles, use both...but the best idea would be, to use what fits in that situation (f.e. if you have just a logbox which is 3 lines height, then I'd use 3 2 1, for 'normal' logs I'd stick with 1 2 3).

Bobby

 

[JohnH]

The source of the data has no choice, msg1 msg2 msg3 etc. When saving to file appending also makes more sense. When it comes to UI, as the "MessageViewer" wording indicates, it would be a matter of preference, the UI can present data any way you want. Some append and autoscrolls to end when new message arrives, others insert the message to top and keep the display scrolled to top. As for 'trend' I haven't noticed any.

 

[jsurpless]

@jimcilhinney: I think he means how to write a log.

That is correct...

 

[jsurpless]

The source of the data has no choice, msg1 msg2 msg3 etc. When saving to file appending also makes more sense. When it comes to UI, as the "MessageViewer" wording indicates, it would be a matter of preference, the UI can present data any way you want. Some append and autoscrolls to end when new message arrives, others insert the message to top and keep the display scrolled to top. As for 'trend' I haven't noticed any.

Is this something that could be set as a 'preference' in the application?

 

[JohnH]

You could always add a options form and include top/bottom as a setting for how your app display its data. That is up to you.

 

[jsurpless]

You could always add a options form and include top/bottom as a setting for how your app display its data. That is up to you.

Unfortunately, I'm not the developer and I was just wondering if it is possible... => so I can do them and tell them to do it ;-)